BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

24/01/2007

Border with Belarus has loophole for illegal aliens - official

MOSCOW, January 24 (Itar-Tass) - A loophole that appeared on the Russian-Belarussian border is used by citizens by third countries to enter Russia illegally, Russian border service chief Vladimir Pronichev told senators on Wednesday.

"Russian borderguards have recently stopped dozens of attempts by Georgian citizens to illegally enter Russia from Belarus. We don't rule out that this channel may be used by members of terrorist organizations and cross border criminal groups. Russian services are taking measures to bust this channel of illegal migration," Pronichev underlined during "the government hour" session at the Federation Council upper house of the Russian parliament.

Commenting on the situation in the North Caucasus, he said border guards checked more than 300,000 people who were crossing Russia's state border in that region last year, exposing 100 with links to illegal paramilitary formations.

Source:

http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11185563&PageNum=0